he lush Lahore Gymkhana cricket ground in Bagh-i-Jinnah is one of the most beautiful grounds in the city. But the authorities have forgotten theirjob of producing talented cricketers for the Pakistan team. They are not using the ground for its real purpose and considering it a private entity.

The ground is not even available to for holding domestic cricket matches of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).

On the PCB`s official website, Bagh-iJinnah is not included as a ground for first-class matches. It is unfortunate that the ground, which hosted the first ever unofficial Test match between Pakistan and the West Indies in 1948, has lostits status.Thisis only because the gymkhana authorities are not ready to allow anyone on the ground on certain days where they play their own matches or on the pretext of maintenance. There is a need for gymkhana authorities to adopt a policy to produce international-level cricketers instead of playing themselves only.

Lahore Gymkhana possesses best facilities in sports such as tennis, snooker, swimming and golf but they are not used to produce international players as they are allowed to members onlyforntness purposes.

The Bagh-i-Jinnah cricket ground has full potential to host first-classmatches. The PCB should also start negotiations with the Lahore Gymkhana to resume matches, at least domestic cricket. The Lahore City Cricket Association should also show courage and hold some club matches on this ground.

L ast week, the Punjab Olympic Association (PbOA) organised the 7th Lahore Inter-School and InterCollegiate Games providing a chance to educational institutions to show their mettle.

According to the PbOA, around 250 schools and colleges, both government and private, featured in the three-day gala. As many as 30 different sports were contested. Though it is a good attempt to promote sporting culture on educational level, especially in private schools, the number of days was not enough for such a huge exercise.

Holding 30 sports with a couple of hundred schools and colleges seemed a formality; it should have been held in phases. For example, five sports should have been held in one week to complete the entire exercise in six weeks giving fair opportunity to everyone to excel.

Furthermore, the association has been organising this gala only for Lahore institutions, ignoring other main divisions of Punjab such as Multan, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Bahawalpur and Sargodha.Divisional Public School, Model Town for Boys won the gala with 1,179 points. Adabistan-i-Soophia School, Mozang won the girls event at school level. Lahore College for Women with 1,387.5 points won the girls college event.

I he Sports Board Punjab has a giant task ahead to complete 1,000 grounds in the province for which funds have already been allocated. But so far not a single ground has been completed for inauguration.

The provincial government allocatedhugefundsforthis purposeinits two previous budgets.

A high-level meeting in this regard was held last week with the board`s Director General Zulfiqar Ahmad Ghumman presiding over it.

The sports infrastructure is to be built in districts like Sheikhupura, Sargodha, Sahiwal, Bhakkar, Attock, Hasan Abdal Gujranwala, Lahore, Layyah, Vehari, Muzaffargarh, Sahiwal, Jhang, Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and various others. The meeting, however, was informed that work on several projects was in final stages.

The board had also recovered nine kanals of its land from land grabbers in Tajpura. A total of 49 kanals has been occupie d by grabbers. According to the SBP, 29 kanals have been recovered.